


A Candle In The Darkness

by nesrynfaliq



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: (not many spoilers though), ACOWAR, Brotp, Gen, Sexual Assault Mention, abuse mention, but it is set during actual ACOWAR so you know, child abuse mention, do with that what you will, friendship fic, trauma talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 14:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nesrynfaliq/pseuds/nesrynfaliq
Summary: Prompt: Anything with Azriel/Nesta. Nesta is working in the library in the House of Wind, Azriel joins her and asks if he can help her. She allows him to. The two share a quiet moment and Azriel helps her work through a few things she hasn't fully processed after she asks him about the scars on his hands.'There’s an odd sense of compassion to the shadowsinger, one she isn’t sure others pick up on. She’s heard them whisper about how cold he is, how distant, how empty. Unfeeling. Emotionless. Dead inside. She had heard those things whispered behind her back too. They had bothered her once. She was not devoid of emotion, rather she felt everything too much but...But she had never known how to show it, how to put it into words, how to make others understand. She wonders if Azriel has experienced that too, wonders if, perhaps, he feels as much as she does, just in a way that no-one but she can see or know, because they haven’t experienced that.'





	A Candle In The Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited and splurge written at 2am so like, read at your own risk.

Azriel had come to help her while she was working in the library. She hadn’t heard him approach, hadn’t sensed him at all, not even with the new senses that were honed so sharply she could hear heartbeats and feathers drifting to the ground, but she could not hear him as he approached her.

He apologises quietly for startling her, bowing a little towards her. She furrows her brow at him. She understands everyone in this court, Cassian...Well, she had been figuring him out for some time. Mor wore her heart on her sleeve, open and warm and free. Even Amren she understood better than this silent, shadow-wreathed bat. Amren was like her. But Azriel...

The Illyrian has hardly said three words to her since she arrived here. Not out of rudeness, he’s been perfectly polite to her, helpful, welcoming..He’s just quiet. Doesn’t like to waste words on idle conversation or say things simply for the sake of talking. She suspects that Mor talks enough for both of them. Nesta decides in that moment that she likes him.

As though sensing this decision on her part one corner of Az’s mouth twitches up for a moment, then he blinks at it’s gone, his typical smooth, impassive mask replacing it. “May I sit down?” He asks quietly, Nesta nods, watching him, half wary, half curious.

“Why are you here?” she demands, watching him study the careful piles of notes that she has carefully arranged on the table before her.

If he tries to move any of them she might suddenly find it much, much easier to access and unleash whatever power the Cauldron gave her. Cassian had sauntered in here the other day and casually picked up and dumped a pile of notes a foot away from where they’d been to make room for the huge booted feet he’d promptly placed on the desk in front of him as he lounged in his chair. She’d nearly throttled him. 

Azriel, however, touches nothing, he only raises his hazel eyes to her once more and says quietly, “I thought I would offer to help you sort through these,” he gestures at the books and scrolls on the table, “I have a few hours before I have to train with your sister, I felt I should make myself of use.”

There’s no suggestion of any other motive behind those eyes, those words. His tone is precisely controlled, voice light and polite. If it had been anyone else she might have thought they were trying to force their company on her, check upon her at her busybody sister’s request. But him...

Nesta shrugs, “If you like,” she says, not quite sure why she’s accepting his help, she doesn’t need it, she’s perfectly capable of sorting through this on her own and yet...Yet the nightmares had been bad last night and she knows Az won’t press her, won't try and talk to her, won’t do anything but sit and help. And perhaps...perhaps she needs that right now.

Opening her mouth she starts explaining her system of organisation to him but Azriel very carefully and deliberately reaches out and selects a book from the pile that’s been set aside for her to work on next. Then he pulls a piece of parchment from the stack she has prepared, along with a pen, and begins to work. Nesta smiles. He had taken the time to study her desk and understand what she was doing, then adapted to it.

Oddly, this fact instantly relaxes her around him. Mostly she’s constantly on edge whenever anyone tries to help her with something she’s doing herself. She has a way of doing things and she dislikes anyone even threatening to interrupt it. But Azriel...He took the time to understand what she was doing and accept it and it calms her, makes her trust him. A part of her whispers that this aspect of him, this ability to know just how to put people at ease around him, is what makes the shadowsinger one of the most dangerous people she’s ever met.

Still, she can’t help herself as she settles into her chair and resumes her work, quickly becoming absorbed in it again. They work in quiet, companionable silence for almost half an hour, no sound at all between the turning of pages, the scratching of their pens and the soft rustle of robes as some of the priestesses move quietly through the shelves around them.

As time passes however, she starts to find her eyes being drawn by the shadowsinger’s hands. Deft, precise, and incredibly careful, he never so much as nudges one of her papers an inch out of place but...She can’t help watching him, can’t help staring at those scars that mar his hands. She suspects they extend further, beneath the sleeves that he always seems to wear, a little longer than necessary, as though he wishes to hide the worst of them.

A stray shadow curls around Azriel’s ear and his eyes lift from the page he was scanning, making neat columns of notes in a careful hand, and catches her eyes, sees what she’s looking at. Nesta rarely blushes anymore but she does then, “Sorry,” she mumbles, hastily returning her eyes to her book.

Az however merely shakes his head, “It’s alright,” he says softly.

She snorts, “It’s not,” she says bluntly, not looking at him, “You must hate it, the stares, the questions, the-” Pity. The same pity she had been terrified of after Tomas, the reason she’d hidden her bruises from all of them, even Elain.

Azriel nods slowly at that, not contradicting her, and she feels her respect rise for him at that as well. Too many people insist on stumbling around what they want to say, on denying, and maintaining an odd veneer of politeness that looks more and more like lies the more she’d studied it. Az doesn’t bother with that.

His eyes meet hers for a moment and then glance away slightly, at the ears she has concealed behind her hair, the styling of it deliberately done to cover the pointed tips. She just nods jerkily and he dips his chin in affirmation, understanding.

She swallows, should return to her notes, but the question blurts out of her before she can stop it, “How did it happen?” She finds herself demanding. Az looks up again, slow, “Your hands, I mean,” she says, jerking her chin towards them.

She holds his gaze with unflinching focus as he studies her, weighs the question. She had struggled for years in her youth, while her mother had been alive, frustrated at her lack of what she had termed ‘proper etiquette’. Nesta had never understood why the blunt questions she asked were considered so offensive, had never understood why someone had to bury an honest question or simple answer beneath an avalanche of frills and false politeness to make it acceptable in high society circles.

Elain had excelled at it, had seemed born knowing just what the right thing to say was and just what the wrong thing was. Nesta had given up. After years of insecurity and second-guessing herself she had simply decided to be who she was, ask the questions the way she felt was appropriate, even if others recoiled from her for reasons she still couldn’t understand.

Even so, she finds herself having to bite her lip to stop herself telling Az he doesn’t have to answer her if he doesn’t wish to. He knows that, there’s nothing stopping him keeping silent if he chooses to, no point wasting words on empty assurances.

At last, flexing the hands in question, having stared at them as though he isn’t quite sure they’re real, seeing something she can’t, Azriel asks quietly, too quietly, “How much have you heard about my childhood?”

For once she considers her words before spitting them out. From what she’s heard he didn’t have much of a childhood at all. None of the Illyrians did, particularly, but him...Finally she says, carefully, “I have heard it was...Unpleasant, but..No-one has given me details.”

She winces inwardly at the clunky phrasing, at the soft, humourless smile that had touched his lips at the word ‘unpleasant’ a feeble, empty word compared with what he had endured. She doesn’t let her discomfort show however, simply sits there, watching him, as he decides how to answer.

At last, “I was eight.” Her stomach lurches and she swallows, wondering suddenly if she truly wants to hear the story that’s about to follow. “I grew up a bastard in my father’s keep. He was a lesser Illyrian lord, tradition dictated that he care for his own, that he keep me alive, as I was his son.”

A muscle in his jaw feathered, his eyes darkening, but he continued a moment later, “His wife took a rather literal view of this law. As long as I was still breathing, she reasoned, then he had fulfilled what the laws dictated regarding bastards. I was locked in a cell, chained to a wall, my wings pinned, left in darkness for eleven years before the shadows came and I was at last unleashed.”

Every word was soft, empty, utterly devoid of emotion, as though he was speaking about a stranger, about a story that was not real and had never happened to anyone, let alone himself. But that final word, the chilling promise that it still carried all these years later...Nesta found herself understanding that, too. Understanding that when she had risen from the darkness the Cauldron had forced her into...There was a chilling promise to be unleashed in her as well, in what it had given to her in that darkness, in what she herself had taken from it, as he had.

“His wife had brothers, older than me, trueborn, they...” He swallowed, and for the first time seemed to struggle with himself, with the memories, old as they were, the scars upon his soul that remained as brutally etched there as the ones upon his hands. How old he was and yet they had never faded, never fully healed, the damage had been so bad. “They enjoyed...Tormenting me, for their own entertainment.” A cold spike of horror goes down her spine at that.

“Fire and oil...Should not be mixed with Illyrian healing blood.” He says at last and she feels her entire body stiffen, disgust and anger roiling together in the pit of her stomach.

That anyone could do that to a helpless child...She lifts one of her hands, lays it gently on his, no more than a brush of her fingers but...She would never normally do that, never typically seek to reach out and touch another to offer comfort but...In this case it seems to have been the right thing to do. 

“I am sorry for what you went through,” she says quietly, meaning every word, and he nods his head in polite acceptance. 

Then he looks at her and says, carefully, “I am sorry for all you have been through as well.”

His eyes again flick to the pointed ears she keeps hidden at all times, avoiding looking at them in mirrors whenever she can. She hasn’t bathed since..That day. Can’t stand even the thought of it. And the nightmares when she closes her eyes...There’s a reason she forces herself to remain awake working but rises early the next day.

A part of her though, the part that squirms with what was done to her, the violation of her body before that body was torn from her...Wonders if he sees that too. Cassian would never have told him, she’s sure of that but...The way he looks at her. She wonders if he knows, wonders if he understands how she felt coming out of that Cauldron. A new body. Strange. Different. Foreign. But a body that he had never touched. That he never  _would_ touch. A body that could, some day, be entirely hers again. She wonders if he would have felt the same, coming out of the Cauldron, with hands unmarred by his brother’s cruelty.

There’s an odd sense of compassion to the shadowsinger, one she isn’t sure others pick up on. She’s heard them whisper about how cold he is, how distant, how empty. Unfeeling. Emotionless. Dead inside. She had heard those things whispered behind her back too. They had bothered her once. She was not devoid of emotion, rather she felt everything too much but...But she had never known how to show it, how to put it into words, how to make others understand. She wonders if Azriel has experienced that too, wonders if, perhaps, he feels as much as she does, just in a way that no-one but she can see or know, because they haven’t experienced that.

That sense, the sense he understands whatever she will say next, that he will accept it, the sense that there is no way of her saying anything  _wrong_  to him, has her saying quietly, “How did you endure that...Afterwards? How did you...” She trails off, unable to put what she needs from him into words but the way he watches her tells her he knows what she’s asking of him. 

He shifts slightly in the chair, the wings at his back rustling as he readjusts them, folding them in tighter. “When I left my father’s keep for the first time...It felt like what I imagine all of this feels like for you,” he gestures around at the library. “I emerged from the darkness into a new world, a world I had never experienced before, with a body that was not entirely my own.” His wings shift again, as though emphasising that point. “I had strange abilities I did not yet fully understand, that others did not understand either. I had a body that could do things I was not accustomed to. I was thrown into a place I had no knowledge of. I did not understand their rules, what was expected of me, what would be done to me if I failed there.” 

He stops himself, as though afraid he’s said too much, eyeing her with a piercing stare that she can’t quite read. Then he continues, more smoothly, “I trained,” he says simply, “I trained my body, I trained my abilities, I learned how to be...Me.” A small frown creases his brows at that, “I do not think I ever learned how to be an Illyrian. I tried. I tried very hard. I learned their customs, their mythology, their lore. I learned their rules, I learned how to pretend to be one of them so well that they accepted me as one.” 

Nesta swallows, looking away. Perhaps that was why this had all been easier for her than it had been for Elain. Elain had fit in that world, she had had a place, she had known what to do, had known the rules without having to try and learn them, work to remind herself to obey them every day so that she would fit in...Perhaps she was so good at pretending she fit into the fae world, as she’d spent her entire life practising, trying to fit into a world that never quite seemed made for her. 

“I never truly saw myself as one,” he says softly, “And after a long time...I stopped trying.” She looks up at him then, meets his eyes, feels the flicker of understanding that passes between them. “I simply learned how to be myself. What that is...I cannot explain to other people.” He shakes his head, “I do not need to. They may name me Illyrian if they wish. Shadowsinger, bastard, spymaster, monster.” He shrugs, “They see what they wish to see. I see...I see what I became. What I made of myself. You can try to be high fae. You can try to embrace whatever it is that the Cauldron gave you, Nesta...None of that will matter if you cannot accept yourself.” 

“I am not curled in my bedchamber refusing to see anyone,” she snaps tartly at him. 

Elain...She wishes she could help her, wishes she knew how. She’s always been more comfortable around her than others, has spent so much time around her that she understands her, how to help her, what to do with her, but now...The wraith in that room is not her sister, not the sweet, soft, strong girl she knew so well. She doesn’t know how to help her and it kills her, a little more each day. 

Azriel does not answer, simply gives her a knowing look. She isn’t sure whether that makes her want to rage at him or simply respect him for his understanding. Nesta has never quite accepted herself...Not deep down. She has always wished to be something  _else_. 

Before their mother died she had wished to be her, elegant and so confident, so capable with people, reading them, playing them, being with them. 

In that cottage she had wished to be Feyre, to be able to do what she did, to be practical,  _useful_  instead of the helpless, spiteful burden she had instead felt like. 

When they had escaped she had wished to be someone of power, of consequences. She had wished to be away from that small town, those small-minded people with no ambition. She had wanted to  _be_ something, be someone, someone important, someone who might be able to change their fractured, broken world, who would be taken seriously. 

Now...Now she  _was_ someone. She had power, she had a story that might change things, she...She could be what she had always wished to be. If she accepted what she was, what she had, not what she wanted. 

Feyre had asked her to speak at the High Lord’s meeting. To train. To use her powers. To be something. To do something. Perhaps...Perhaps she would. 

She and Azriel worked in companionable silence for a few more minutes before he began arranging piles and notes in a way that told her he was readying himself to leave and meet Feyre for their flying lessons. The words she’s kept contained for weeks burst out of her before she can stop them. 

“I can’t sleep.” It’s a harsh rasp, as though her throat constricts around the weakness, the vulnerability, and threatens to strangle her rather than let her reveal it to him. But once she’s said that the rest follows, tumbling out of her beyond her control. “I cannot bathe, I cannot stand the feeling of being submerged, it feels like I’m drowning. I cannot stand the darkness. I cannot stand-” The feeling of his hands on her, still. But that...That she’s not ready to tell him, to tell anyone...Even herself. 

Azriel stands but his face is unusually soft, his voice gentle when he says, “It will get better with time.” She opens her mouth to snap out a retort but he placidly continues, “Talk. To your sister. To Morrigan. To Cassian. It will help.” He looks down at her, thoughtful, “Do you know where you are?” He asks softly, “Do you know what this place is?” 

She nods tightly, “Mor brought me here,” she says quietly, “She..Explained.” Why this library had been founded, who ran it, who decided who could enter it. 

“Talk to them too,” Azriel murmurs softly, “It will help. In the meantime...Wash with rags and buckets if you have to. Sleep in the same bed as Elain again, if it helps. Walk when you cannot sleep, seek someone out who can help. You survived what was done to you initially, in that Cauldron, elsewhere.” Her eyes snap to his but he makes no further comment. “You can survive what comes now. You will survive what comes now.” 

She swallows, nods her head in acceptance of his words as he rises, graceful and sure, and turns to leave. He hesitates before he does however, glancing back, debating something with himself. 

Finally he says softly, “Sometimes...I still leave a candle burning when I sleep, so I am not left alone in the darkness.” She starts in surprise and wonders, from the look in his eyes, whether he has ever confided that fact, that flicker of vulnerability, to another soul in all these years. “There is no shame, Nesta, in doing what you must to survive what you have endured. And none will think less of you for asking for help, for...For needing a candle to stop you fearing the darkness.” 

With that he leaves, not saying another word to her, and Nesta sits surrounded by her books and notes, thinking that perhaps...Perhaps she might like to sleep. Just for a little while. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!! Feel free to come chat to me on tumblr (I've relocated to illyrianazriel) and please leave a comment if you have a second!


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